If you’re serious about cycling, two bikes is the minimum: a great road bike, and a great mountain bike. Two such bikes are shown below. Click each image to read more about that bike.

I love riding my road bike, but recently it began to be a grind, so I switched to my new Moots MootoX RSL for the better part of the week. With the weather as nice as one could wish and nearly empty trails and gorgeous sunsets, the change was welcome— and I’m feeling like the cross training effect has made my legs stronger than ever.

Riding a road bike will make you a better mountain biker. Riding a mountain bike will make you a better road biker.

My tapering workouts prior to the epic Everest Challenge (in a few weeks) will be on my mountain bike, high in the gorgeous White Mountains of California. I will acclimate to the altitude using the mountain bike, so I don’t need pavement— it’s cool and refreshing at 10,000' and very beautiful. But without a mountain bike, I’d not have that option.

A good bike is expensive, but most people I know just simply are not serious about the goal, invoking a knee-jerk and hard-wired cognitive commitment on pricing, confusing price with value.

Want a good bike? Stop drinking beer, eating out at restaurants, going to movie theatres, buy a used car instead of new (I did), and save your money instead of frittering it away. I waited *years* to get what I wanted because I like to invest for the long term, in things that last, last for a long time, things I enjoy more than temporary small pleasures. Find your own path, and buying used is just fine too. A good bike is an investment in health and joy, something a big-screen TV or fancy car or that new couch or iPad/iPad won’t do. If you have to be patient for some years, well that makes the acquisition all the more sweet.